Sunday, May 07, 2006

Beautiful Things

Courtney and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is much better than the MOMA, because modern art blows. It had been a long time since I set foot in the Met. Abouth the only thing I remembered was the armor exhibit (go figure). This time I could look at several of the pieces with some actual working knowledge of history, which was a nice change from my usual "blundering" form of museum-going.

Aside from the permanent exhibits, of which I have some pictures, we saw some interesting special features. One was a very cool look at Tibetan arms and armor. Some very difficult to find pieces in there, since we don't really associate Tibet with warfare. It is, of course, a very turbulent area, where sword and musket were actually useful combat implements well into the 20th century.

The other special was Anglo Mania, an examination of English fashion and its influence on the world. The exhibit consists mostly of "traditional" elements - dresses, coats, furniture from high eras of British history - set against "transgressive" pieces - recent modern avant garde crap. Very silly.

The Sackler Gallery, part of the Asian Art Exhibit, was probably my favorite.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Time for a visit to the ROM, I think.

Who's Courtney?

E Mac said...

Courtney is my very special lady friend.

What is the ROM?

Anonymous said...

I liked the bears. Why are they on notice?

E Mac said...

http://www.colbertnation.com/colbertnation/lists.jhtml

Anonymous said...

Ay me. Museums. I totally need to sneak off to a Seattle museum sometime soon. Or maybe hit NYC and a killer museum. Or maybe visit some foreign country where I can see stuff en situ.

Hhm. Is that Tibetan exhibit travelling, do you know?

Anonymous said...

Courtney is my very special lady friend.

Go you! Do call and tell at some point.

ROM=Royal Ontario Museum. 'Tis 3 blocks from our place.

E Mac said...

I'll drop you a line sometime this week, Bekah. Jason, I don't know if it is a travelling exhibit. If you click on the link you will me my equal in knowledge on the subject.

Anonymous said...

I'm going to go with "no," then, as the exhibit is listed as a "Special Exhibit" (not a "Travelling Exhibit") and resulting from the generosity of a charitable trust.

Ah well. No Tibetan gunnery for me. I'll content myself with thinking about it, in my head.